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I do as well. I also pray for the end of Islam. They seem hell bent on persecuting Christians and Jews so I pray that they will cease to exist.

dan l

I'm going to assume that you meant to pray that Islam will "cease to exist" not that individual Muslims will "cease to exist" because it's wrong to pray for genocide.

Works for me. The ideal way would be for that religion to convert to Christianity. I can't dismiss that as impossible, since who would have ever thought the Aztecs would convert? Just our luck the Muslims would convert to Christian fundamentalism and make us all miserable. LOL. But praying for their conversion is certainly a worthwhile thing to do. Arianism finally went away, maybe the same can happen to Islam.

The end of that religion would be a blessing to the world. Conversion to Christ would be the best avenue.

Dan L

Yes, it would be terrible to pray for genocide. There are murderers in all religions. I get annoyed by the scapegoating of an entire group because a small percentage are committing evil. A recent poll conducted by Cornell found that 44% of Americans wish to limit Muslim Americans' civil rights. That is ridiculous.

Jason,

I doubt that anyone on this board would disagree with you.

Dan L

"Arianism finally went away, maybe the same can happen to Islam."

Funnily enough, Islam is a form of Arianism!

At present, there are fundamentalist Christian groups seeking the conversion of the Muslims, but there seems a definite lack of such an effort at mission within the historic Churches. This is entirely deplorable, particularly in the case of Muslims coming to Christian countries.

Incognitus

I regret deeply the disruption of the Greek ceremony and agree that resumption of the Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia would be a wonderful thing, as would conversion of Muslims to Christianity. However, I deplore the fact that this thread has devolved to one of hatred against a religion and its devotees, not a laudable thing on a Christian forum.

Many years,

Neil

Neil,

Islam is historically a Christian heresy. It will be good when this heresy ceases to exist. The post has not devolved at all judging even from your critique.

DanL

Let's be realistic. I think you have to remember that Spain did not get its land back by engaging in ecumenical dialogue with the Moors. Spain had to militarily drive the Moors out. Ecumenical dialogue isn't going to return Constantinople to the Greeks, either.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Turkish nationalism is secular. The threatening crowd may have had some Muslim adherents. My bet is that most were secularists - detesting Islam as backwards and seeing the blessing of the water as something Greek rather than Christian (which they would see as anti-Turkish and backwards).

No imams or muftis in that crowd.

Sincerely,
Christopher
(formerly of Sirevler-Istanbul)

The truth is that Turkey is a secular country. Regardless, Turkey is famous for its genocide... towards many different people. As Hitler so infamously stated when he decided to exterminate the Jews, "who today remembers the Armenians". Turkey is also hated by other Muslims, such as Syria... if one should ever wonder why Turkey has always had a close friendship with Israel.

On the Turkish side though, she knows that whatever land she has, originally belonged to others. In that sense, one cannot blame them for not wanting the head of a major religion, (such as the Orthodox Patriarch), based on their land.

Certainly we wouldn't want the 'head' Iman stationed in Washington DC. Of course Turkey doesn't accept that the Patriarch is the head of the Orthodox Church, but rather only leads the few Greeks that were left in Istanbul after the pogroms of the 1950's.

As for throwing them into the sea as Gaudior said, I always wondered what the Greeks intended to do with them, if their dreams of recapturing Asia Minor had ever come about. But it didn't, so instead the Greeks were thrown into the sea.

The only forseeable thing, would be for the Turks to become Christians, and had the Orthodox prayed for this, the original Ottoman Empire might have ceased to exist centuries ago.

As for the above quote, even though Turkey is a secular nation, their thoughts have been formed by a Muslim culture. To give one an idea of how different their thoughts are: At the time the Greeks were kicked out in 1923, the Turks kept the young girls and women, and then forced them to have children with Muslims. This way they could say and believe, that they themselves were the original inhabitants.

I recalled this when reading how the Jordanians were upset about Spain and wanted it back. They believe that they are the original 'Arian' inhabitants.

Somehow, I gather from this, and other things that I have heard, that Islam seems to be a religious/political system, where the individual doesn't really matter and that the Muslims should accept their'fate' in life, regardless of what it is, for the benefit and expansion of the state.

What is pathetic, is that they refuse to join the EU if Christianity is mentioned as the basis of Western civilization.

Zenovia

I think I better specify on the above quote. When the Greeks were thrown into the sea in 1923, they were in the majority. If the modern Greeks, with their dreams of recapturing Istanbul and Asia Minor were to be accomplished, the Turks would be in the majority, and certainly they would not be thrown into the sea. So what in the world do they expect to do with them?

I recall reading a prophecy by a monk during the Byzantine era. He said to someone, "do you see that tribe called the Rus. Well in the last days, Constantinople will belong to them".

So far the Russians haven't managed it...England wouldn't allow it. Somehow though, I can't help but wonder if it refers to Istanbul or to the Patriarchate? Considering that someone cannot become a Patriarch unless they have Turkish citizenship, and I have been told by Greek officials that should the Patriarchate cease to exist, it would have to be taken over by the Russian patriarch; the old Byzantine prophecy does not seem to far fetched.

Zenovia

I don't know what Jennifers comments were, but I would like to respond to this quote. There can be a silver lining to the tsunami dark cloud, if it made us more aware of the child sex traficking in that part of the world...and began to do something about it.

Zenovia

Getting back to the ORIGINAL topic of this thread:

It surprises me to read the article refer to "Turkish Nationalists." Turkey, as envisioned by Atta Turk, is supposed to be a secular state.

The more likley proper reference would have simply been "Muslim Demostrators." The fact that there were only 60 of them out of a city of that size leads me to believe that this was fringe, extremist group.

Just my humble thoughts.

hal